“They are going to put Bo in jail.”
The phone call comes from my wife Leah around 6:45. “Bo pulled onto Entebbe Road after we thought the presidential convoy had finished going through, but it hadn’t. He was pulled over and now they want to impound the car. Can you come and get us?”
The dust, fine and red, coated the plants lining our roads. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. As my children lay awake in bed, I stuck my head in and reminded them to keep guzzling plenty of water, after a friend of theirs landed in the clinic due to dehydration.
Unfortunately it paralleled my parched insides. So many tasks to which I put my hand seemed to droop, languishing and limp. The cost-benefit ratio of my parenting, my ministry there in Uganda, and a handful of relationships seemed tilting precariously in the wrong direction.
I don’t know about you, but I do have regrets over some trends in which I was a willing participant.
They include teased bangs. Polka dots. Crispy, overgelled, permed hair. Tight-rolled jeans. White eyeliner.
Do you remember your first exposure to global work? At the risk of dating myself, mine involved slideshows, prayer cards for your fridge, and talk about jungles, huts, canoes, and a Peace Child. In third grade, I told Mom I wanted to go to Japan as a missionary.
The great news? Along with our speed-of-light world, missions has changed, too. Missions trends reflect that as a Church, we’re learning from our mistakes (like missions that whiffs of colonialism or cultural appropriation; check out Does Christianity destroy culture?).
Editor’s note: Tucked away in my family room sits a box made of exotic African wood, lugged back using precious luggage weight when my family returned from Uganda. It is one of our most beautiful possessions–not physically, but in its emotional cargo. It was fashioned by hand in the workshop of our organization as one-of-a-kind. Tucked within are loads of letters and laminated photographs of lives we loved and shared in our efforts to build community overseas.
You likely share the goal of my family: to dig in deeply enough to love well, intimately enough to change each other. To work toward the brand of enduring, life-on-life love that models God’s Body.
Perhaps, like me, your gut sinks like a stone over the events of the last few weeks–precipitated by issues centuries old, accentuated by the deaths of people named Ahmaud. Breonna. George. In lieu of online services, my husband and I have led “home church” with our kids about racial discrimination. I’ve talked with beleagured police families, with brown friends.
As a person looking overseas, how have you personally responded to a nation exploding in anger and riots? (Here’s a helpful perspective from The Gospel Coalition: “Oh, God, Make Us Angry.”)
We heart this ongoing series–a virtual trip to the coffee shop with organizations to help you go there, serve Him, and love them even better.
(For more thoughts about why you might join an agency–and a handful of reasons you might not–make sure to check out He Said/She Said/You Say? “Should I go overseas with an organization?”, both the pros and the cons.)
Perhaps you’ve read the recent headlines of a young woman who moved to Uganda at 19–but is now under investigation regarding a number of children who lost their lives in her clinic, considering she was not a medical professional.
A Live Overseas wrestles with a handful of the questions we’re all wondering in their excellent post, How Equipped is Equipped Enough?
During the month of August, Go. Serve. Love is stoked to share stories from All Nations, a global training and sending agency.
All Nation’s vision is to see Jesus worshiped by all the peoples of the earth. Their mission? To make disciples and train leaders to ignite church planting movements among the neglected peoples of the earth.
